Hong Kong Police Arrested Five Organizers of July 1 Rally

By Alex Davis -
Jul 4, 2014

Hong Kong police today arrested two
men and three women aged 22 to 60 involved in organizing a July
1 protest march, for not following police instructions and
obstruction, according to a government statement.

Among the five taken into custody, a 60-year-old man was
arrested for vacating a vehicle without having stopped the
engine and and a 40-year-old woman was arrested for giving false
information, according to the statement.

More than 500,000 people took to the streets of Hong Kong
July 1 according to rally organizers, in the biggest march for a
decade held to oppose Chinese control of elections. China raised
tensions with pro-democracy supporters in the special
administrative region after issuing a policy paper in June
asserting that the city’s right to autonomy wasn’t inherent.

Police arrested 511 people on July 2, the day after the
rally, for illegal gathering and obstructing traffic in the
Central business district after the protest turned into an
overnight sit-in.

The rally came after almost 800,000 people voted in an
unofficial referendum organized by Occupy Central With Love and
Peace, an activist group, against China’s insistence that it vet
candidates for the 2017 election.

The group plans to hold a larger sit-in in the business
district if the government’s 2017 leadership elections proposal
does not involve full democracy. Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung
Chun-ying’s administration reiterated July 1 that public
nomination of candidates is unlikely to win consent.